Empire of the Iguanadons

Leave your political correctness at the door.

Super Tuesday 2012

Do you hear that sound? The sound of mad scribbling? That's the sound of many hands tonight writing on the collective walls of our political process. They all have one thing in common tonight: Mitt Romney wins. It looks like we've finally managed to get the Republican party pointed in the same direction for the firs time in the last several months. While I'm not personally happy with where this is inevitably leading, the fat lady is singing loud and clear. This race is over. Time to get down to business with the results, after the jump.

Georgia being Newt's home state, it saddens me greatly he couldn't even get 50% of the votes there. Newt, love ya man, but you're done. I'm sticking a fork in you.

It disturbs me equally as much that Virginia only mustered 60% of their fucked up system to vote for Mitt. That so many of you voted for Ron Paul scares me, and should scare the rest of the country too.

It was a bloodbath tonight, and we're basically down the choice between a Massachusetts RINO and a fanatical social conservative who is too easily baited into stupid arguments by the media. Ugh. Still, either one of them is indisputably better than re-electing Obama. So let's hope Newt and Paul drop out so this can get over with sooner. That is the sound of inevitability. Why fight it?.........................RIP United States of America

So, if as you suggest, Newt and Ron dropped out, what happens to their combined 143 delegates?

I'm not so sure they're really trailing as far as you're suggesting either. Ron's a whole 61 delegates behind Newt at this point, and Newt's a whole 67 delegates behind Rick. Now, the lead Mitt has on Rick is pretty noteworthy, but you weren't suggesting that Ron, Newt, & Rick should all just concede to Mitt yet either, so i have to assume you also realize that even 407 is still quite a far cry from 1,144 thus meaning that it's still potentially anyone's ball game out of the four of them.

I'm actually a bit surprised that neither Newt nor Rick qualified for the ballot in Virginia, though I suspect that should be telling us all something in itself. As for Ron's pulling in 40% of the Virginia vote, given that they only had two choices, Ron's not entirely off-base with the people as so many of these caucuses have recently shown, he has managed to pull down votes in every caucus so far, hasn't he?

I do agree that it's a pretty bad sign that Newt couldn't even get 50% in his own home state, but he still won the state, so, while you may be ready to stick a fork in him over that, I rather doubt he's ready to drop out just yet.

If it really is down to Mitt and Rick, I suppose a "Massachusetts RINO" [Mitt Romney] is preferable in my mind to "a fanatical social conservative who is too easily baited into stupid arguments by the media" [Rick Santorum].

Well whether Newt and Ron Paul will admit it, they're finished. The miracle (or disaster) needed for one of them to win the nomination now would be staggering in power. Neither of them has the base for it anymore. So yes, I'm sticking a fork in them both. Newt staked his entire campaign on Super Tuesday and it blew up in his face. The 143 delegates would likely be released to support one of the two who remain behind.

You're right though that Santorum still has an outside shot since he's amassed a decent enough pool of delegates. It depends on which states remain to run primaries etc. Santorum isn't going to be taking California, that I can guarantee you. Romney has that one in the bag before we even get there.

Yes, if it comes down to Romney or Santorum, my vote goes to Romney. RINO or not, the business experience is worth more than social policy any day.

1. Seriously, how bad do you have to be if you're running for president and you didn't even have the foresight to file properly to get on the ballot? This is not the first time this has happened, and should maybe be a clue.

2. While the part of me that thinks the Republicans really, really need to crash and burn wishes Santorum had scored big, the part of me that likes having two viable parties in this country is glad Romney seems to be winning, Doesn't change my wanting them to crash and burn, but it at least makes me feel better about the party's collective sanity.

Virginia's system is really bizarre. It wasn't that they didn't have the foresight to get on the ballot, it's that they have this weird process where you need X amount of people from each county before you can qualify. Romney and Paul were the only two who managed it. Which either means the entire rest of the field sucked that bad, or that the voters in Virginia simply didn't like any of the options and math doomed them all.

Herman Cain still got shafted by the media. He would have been the best choice.

That part of you that wants to see us crash and burn? It's what makes people like me want to see the Democrats as a whole crash, burn, and have their ashes blown into space. So is it any wonder that neither side can accomplish anything? Perhaps that's why we're the closest to a second civil war than we've ever been at any other time in our history? God seems to think that we all need to burn

There was a commentator on TV last night that noted that Romney struggles to fully unite the party because he seems a bit fake, while Santorum lacks the strength to beat him, and seems to be settling on mortally wounding him instead. Not good for the Republican party, anyway.

I share to a degree Dwip's wish for the Republicans to crash and die, although, I suspect the best way for that to happen would be to have the republicans win and watch the bombs start falling over Iran (and various crazy things be implemented back in America, but hey, they'll really be just a side show). But then, when I look at the long term implications of that I tend to think 'actually, maybe its best the Republican's just don't win'.

It's the bombs falling on Iran part that motivates me most to want the Republicans to win. Obama is too much of a chicken shit to do what must be done about them. It would be awfully hard to wage a war as you're slashing the budget of the very people who would have to prosecute it in your name.

Long term? We can't survive another 4 years of Obama's version of Jimmy Carter. It. Just. Can't. Happen.

Virginia's system is really bizarre. It wasn't that they didn't have the foresight to get on the ballot, it's that they have this weird process where you need X amount of people from each county before you can qualify. Romney and Paul were the only two who managed it. Which either means the entire rest of the field sucked that bad, or that the voters in Virginia simply didn't like any of the options and math doomed them all.

Having grown up in Virginia, I don't think of their system as bizarre, rather I tend to think of most of the other states as being too lax in who gets on the ballot. There's a reason the ballot has a write-in box.
It was probably the latter option of those those, I suspect enough people felt like the choices sucked enough that the two of them got blown off by simple math.

Samson said:

Perhaps that's why we're the closest to a second civil war than we've ever been at any other time in our history?

Oh, I think there are more than a few other factors involved too, but yes, it's definitely one of the factors, at least in my opinion.

Sounds pretty, though it'll suck for those of us on satellite internet and satellite TV, but at least it's only a 24 hour phenomena this time.

Samson said:

It's the bombs falling on Iran part that motivates me most to want the Republicans to win. Obama is too much of a chicken shit to do what must be done about them. It would be awfully hard to wage a war as you're slashing the budget of the very people who would have to prosecute it in your name.

I kind of have to second this one. As long as we don't have to endure Obama for another four years, I'm really not that concerned with most of the Republican/Democratic platforms currently. (Though having ObamaCare repealed and redone in far better fashion would really be nice, but...) But to see us deal with the problems in the "Middle East", ahem , properly for a change would be well worth getting a Republican back in office all by itself. (Actually, as far as other issues, I would like to see the economy make some actual headway and there are a few other points I'd like to see, but, frankly, I don't believe anything politicians tell us while still on the campaign trail anyway.)

Samson said:

Long term? We can't survive another 4 years of Obama's version of Jimmy Carter. It. Just. Can't. Happen.

Yeah, this. I prefer "Bottom line" to "Long term", but very much the same sentiment.
Maybe now that Perry's no longer running for President he can work on having Texas cede the union already so we can have start working on a country that would actually stand up to the ideals that our founding fathers had in mind.

It's the bombs falling on Iran part that motivates me most to want the Republicans to win. Obama is too much of a chicken shit to do what must be done about them. It would be awfully hard to wage a war as you're slashing the budget of the very people who would have to prosecute it in your name.

I certainly won't stop you from being Israel's pawn and dragging yourself down into an unwinnable war. Although don't expect my country to have anything to do with it. My sympathies go to the civilian population of the Middle East should things turn out like this.

The Arab government's want you to eliminate them, for sure. The Arab people, on the other hand, feel far more threatened by Israel and the USA.

I'm not saying I support the regime in Iran in any way, shape or form. They are scum and need to die. I do not believe that military intervention is the way to do it. The only real reason the Iranian people have to rally around their government is that there government will defy people (i.e. the west) who try to push them around. Start dropping bombs and you will give them the enormous motivation to do so.

Actually I think you are mistaken on exactly who the Iranian people hate. They seemed to make quite a bit of noise a couple of years back about wanting to boot out Ahmadinejad for being a dick, only to find out Obama was an even bigger dick and wasn't going to support them. THAT is what eventually turns them against us.

The Iraqis were all too happy to have us bombing the shit out of the place as long as Saddam was dead in the end.

Well, the Iraqi's certainly became more pre-occupied with killing each other than American's. Not that they didn't do plenty of that too when the whole civil war thing got going, but shit, those people had some sizable maniac portions of their community crying out for each others blood (in reality, the radical groups blowing each other up probably didn't represent more than 10% of the population, but 10% is more than enough).

But as for the 2009 protests in Iran...um...were they asking for intervention or something. I don't recall that.

You don't need to be a political genius to know the protestors in Iran were asking for help, even if they didn't overtly say so. The opportunity was ripe at the time, and it was completely blown.

Much like the window is open on Syria right now but won't last for long because Obama won't act on it.

As far as the sectarian violence in Iraq, that came along much later in the cycle of things once the radical clerics began stoking their hate. Partly our fault for not having a proper plan on what to do once we'd taken over. It was more or less "oh, well, that was easy, now what?"

I haven't been hearing the Republican candidates talking about helping out the guys in Syria, although I'd offer my support to that policy if are.

Ah...and those ill fated words, 'Mission Accomplished'. Only if, but oh well, that's behind us all now. Well, sort of, because Iraq's back on the verge of civil war. But this time its all their fault, considering the opportunity they ultimately got left with.

Yes, that's right, by March of 2008 the whole thing had been decided in a commanding victory for John McCain. Here we are in March of 2012 with no clear winner.

According to the tallies available at the Wall Street Journal's delegate tracker, there are a total of 1445 more delegates up for grabs in coming contests. Romney still needs 737 more at minimum in order to lock the nomination. He's been averaging 40% in the polls, and very few contests this year are winner-take-all. Getting 737 out of 737 delegates obviously requires that he score 50% of the results between now and June. Which is the big point the Beast was making. The math isn't there if he only claims another 40% of the pool.

Bottom line, he needs Santorum *AND* Gingrich to drop out, and given the climate, neither one of them is likely to do so on their own. So after having read through this, it's beginning to look like that brokered convention is becoming more likely. Which I'm sure will tickle Obama pink as he skates all of the formality elections on the Democrat side.

1. Re: VA elections, maybe I got them confused with somewhere else where random people just didn't bother to get on the ballot. Whichever. Either way, it kind of says something about the candidates when that's a thing that happens.

Which is kind of to say that the more this goes on, the more I keep having 2004 flashbacks, where your Democratic base really wanted Dean but went with the blander, floppier Kerry for electability, such as it was (Kerry: not the best candidate in the whole Democratic party, let us say) and got summarily owned for it. Pretty sure we're going to see a similar thing happen with Santorum v. Romney v. Obama in the general. The difference seems to be that the Dems were hiding Obama and Clinton for 2008, and it's not really clear to me who the realistic GOP choice would be in 2016 - Jindal? Ryan? Maybe I'm missing somebody, but the bench doesn't seem similarly deep or nationally renowned.

Put shorter, this:

prettyfly said:

There was a commentator on TV last night that noted that Romney struggles to fully unite the party because he seems a bit fake, while Santorum lacks the strength to beat him, and seems to be settling on mortally wounding him instead. Not good for the Republican party, anyway.

2. As to the whole crash and burn thing, yeah, I dunno. I really do honestly believe that the Republicans need to crash and burn now if only to pull them back towards the center a little bit. An eventuality where the GOP becomes the permanent minority party and we keep up with all this filibuster and shutdown nonsense doesn't serve anyone well. We need to return to the era of consensus, and I think the only way we're going to get there is if the current GOP leadership understands that being the party of no isn't going to make them win.

(Yes, yes, socialists Obama communism Hitler weak liberal fascist Jimmy Carter rabbit I don't even give a fuck. I'm sick of the rise of the filibuster, I'm sick of sabotaging positions that would have been noncontroversial when it was Bush, I'm sick of a lot of things.)

3. As to "the closest we've ever been to a second civil war", I believe the 1960s would like a word. When major cities start burning, then we'll be approaching that. Not until. Which doesn't mean that I don't have a problem with the current lack of consensus or even lack of willingness to understand the opposition, I just don't think we're close to having the second Confederacy show up.

And you know? Thank God for that. Because not only do I find the idea of secession to be antithetical to the idea of loving this country (you know, treason and all that), the idea that secession would somehow NOT result in economic and political suicide for the United States is completely beyond belief, and if you somehow think that it wouldn't wind up with crazy struggles between state and federal authority, check out how it worked the first (Articles of Confederation) and second (Confederate States of America) times.

Which is to say that Sherman had it right. You people of the South, &c, &c.

4. Re: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran... Well, a few things.

- I'm not sure, but do we need to have the "there's a difference between Arabs and Persians and it matters" discussion? Because it does, and it's hard to tell from the comments.

- Yeah, actually, as far as I recall, and I can't seem to find where I discussed this here before, but I know I did, there just wasn't a big constituancy for massive US support in Iran in 2009, which is why you got what you did. On the contrary, the word at the time was that Obama coming out in support of the Green movement in a big way would have allowed the regime to pass it all off as a plot by the Great Satan, thus sabotaging their chances.

- We've kind of dodged around this before, but way I figure it, if a president, let's call him Obama for the sake of argument, cruises around bombing the shit of Libya, dropping drone strikes and everyone in the damn world, and raiding the living shit out of Pakistan, it kind of strikes me as maybe if he's not bombing more dudes there's reasons for it beyond ritual obescience to a shrine of Neville Chamberlain that he's got set up in the White House basement.

This is kind of how, remember how, after the invasion of Iraq when North Korea was shipping missiles and shit to everyone and their dog, and firing them all over the place and trying to start some shit, and how George W Bush, because he was a badass Republican war starter, totally started a huge war with them, axis of evil and all that, and...

...Oh wait, that didn't happen because it wasn't the best idea? Yeah. This is kind of the same thing.

Which is all kind of to say that this whole "Obama is weak" thing just doesn't make any sense to me.

- As far as the actual "Let's bomb Iran" thing, we kind of already had this discussion about Syria, so I don't really want to reiterate myself here except to say that if you thought a war with Syria was going to be tough, a war with Iran would be even worse, and you want to talk about deficit reduction? This ain't gonna help.

- I'm not sure, but do we need to have the "there's a difference between Arabs and Persians and it matters" discussion? Because it does, and it's hard to tell from the comments.

Apparently Iran is only 55% Persian or something like that, with a big Turkish minority (and a tiny Arab one). Otherwise though, I do get that, and I didn't really get the feeling that Samson doesn't either.

being Israel's pawn and dragging yourself down into an unwinnable war. Although don't expect my country to have anything to do with it.

Suit yourself, it's your choice (that's one of those freedoms that we all get to enjoy because we're not under control of some nutjob like Ahmadinejad, btw.) Personally, being jewish myself, I consider anyone who would be "Israel's pawn" quite praiseworthy, thank you very much.

Samson said:

Bottom line, he needs Santorum *AND* Gingrich to drop out, and given the climate, neither one of them is likely to do so on their own. So after having read through this, it's beginning to look like that brokered convention is becoming more likely. Which I'm sure will tickle Obama pink as he skates all of the formality elections on the Democrat side.

While I'm sure Obama's loving being able to watch this scenario play out, it will make for a much more interesting Republican summer than usual.

Dwip said:

In an event never before witnessed on this blog, I got comments.

*GASP!* No, the Dwip has comments?!?

Dwip said:

3. As to "the closest we've ever been to a second civil war", I believe the 1960s would like a word. When major cities start burning, then we'll be approaching that. Not until. Which doesn't mean that I don't have a problem with the current lack of consensus or even lack of willingness to understand the opposition, I just don't think we're close to having the second Confederacy show up.

And you know? Thank God for that. Because not only do I find the idea of secession to be antithetical to the idea of loving this country (you know, treason and all that), the idea that secession would somehow NOT result in economic and political suicide for the United States is completely beyond belief, and if you somehow think that it wouldn't wind up with crazy struggles between state and federal authority, check out how it worked the first (Articles of Confederation) and second (Confederate States of America) times.

Agreed, we haven't had major cities being burned yet. On the other had, we have had a major rise in protestation, even if somewhat misguided, in the so-called Tea Parties and Occupy Wall Street movements and we have had several states seriously talking about secession since Obama took the helm.

I disagree about it being antithetical to patriotism because the idea is to wipe the current slate and return to what this country was meant to be. Not just to treacherously abandon it all and do things our way. As for economic and political suicide for the United States, well the political side of that equation is exactly the idea. The Economic side is an unfortunate side effect that is simply unavoidable, fortunately, the world's economic status is pretty bad anyway, so there's always the chance that a secession wouldn't actually do as much additional harm than just letting things remain in Obama's care would anyway, and eventually we'd recover economically whether as These United States or as a new United States in all likelihood either way.

prettyfly said:

Dwip said:

- I'm not sure, but do we need to have the "there's a difference between Arabs and Persians and it matters" discussion? Because it does, and it's hard to tell from the comments.

Apparently Iran is only 55% Persian or something like that, with a big Turkish minority (and a tiny Arab one). Otherwise though, I do get that, and I didn't really get the feeling that Samson doesn't either.

This, exactly. I don't think we're confusing Arabs and Persians here, though we might be questioning the great value in the modern world of either...

Dwip said:

- We've kind of dodged around this before, but way I figure it, if a president, let's call him Obama for the sake of argument, cruises around bombing the shit of Libya, dropping drone strikes and everyone in the damn world, and raiding the living shit out of Pakistan, it kind of strikes me as maybe if he's not bombing more dudes there's reasons for it beyond ritual obescience to a shrine of Neville Chamberlain that he's got set up in the White House basement.

This is kind of how, remember how, after the invasion of Iraq when North Korea was shipping missiles and shit to everyone and their dog, and firing them all over the place and trying to start some shit, and how George W Bush, because he was a badass Republican war starter, totally started a huge war with them, axis of evil and all that, and...

...Oh wait, that didn't happen because it wasn't the best idea? Yeah. This is kind of the same thing.

Which is all kind of to say that this whole "Obama is weak" thing just doesn't make any sense to me.

- As far as the actual "Let's bomb Iran" thing, we kind of already had this discussion about Syria, so I don't really want to reiterate myself here except to say that if you thought a war with Syria was going to be tough, a war with Iran would be even worse, and you want to talk about deficit reduction? This ain't gonna help.

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't think this situation is the same as North Korea. Similar in several ways, yes, but not the same. For one thing, unlike South Korea, Israel does have the very real means to retaliate, or even counter strike in a bigger fashion. Unlike North Korea where we're going this is a bad situation and we need to make sure it's controlled, here we have Obama telling Israel we'll back them but don't do anything because we're convinced we can talk Syria and Iran out of getting out of hand, despite the fact that they've tried every way they could in the past to get out of hand and now we're talking about them seriously gaining the ability to damage the planet... exactly in the ways they've always wanted to. I do agree that a war in either Syria or Iran would be a seriously bad idea, but I really don't think a few nukes would terribly mind the opposition they'd find there.

Dwip said:

Also, I am tired.

Yeah, I read something about this over on your own blog today.. I would propose that the guys at GameStop might be idiots and giving up sleep entirely for anygame might be a bad idea. In short: Get some rest.

Agreed, we haven't had major cities being burned yet. On the other had, we have had a major rise in protestation, even if somewhat misguided, in the so-called Tea Parties and Occupy Wall Street movements and we have had several states seriously talking about secession since Obama took the helm.

Yeah, but you get movements from time to time. Granted these are big ones, and additionally granted that I was born a good decade after the fact, but what we're seeing now isn't anything on the scale of the Days of Rage, the '68 DNC, White House protests, and what have you. Not even so much as a Haymarket Affair or Matewan. No Bleeding Kansas or Harpers Ferry to our names. Maybe I'm just colored overmuch by how past sectarian strife played out, but I can't help but think that, new to us as it may be, our current troubles are not the worst troubles.

Which is not to imply that there aren't troubles, but our modern day secessionists do not of yet have a John C. Calhoun or Jefferson Davis to their name, and, lacking such, I am inclined to view them more as crackpots and Republicans throwing temper tantrums than a viable movement.

Conner said:

I disagree about it being antithetical to patriotism because the idea is to wipe the current slate and return to what this country was meant to be. Not just to treacherously abandon it all and do things our way. As for economic and political suicide for the United States, well the political side of that equation is exactly the idea. The Economic side is an unfortunate side effect that is simply unavoidable, fortunately, the world's economic status is pretty bad anyway, so there's always the chance that a secession wouldn't actually do as much additional harm than just letting things remain in Obama's care would anyway, and eventually we'd recover economically whether as These United States or as a new United States in all likelihood either way.

So, here's the thing, or rather several things:

- We obviously disagree about the whole "return to what this country was meant to be" thing, which I think is neither here nor there, but I point it out nonetheless.

- To me, if one were to love one's country and wish to improve it, one would attempt to work within and reform the system. We have a democratic process in this country for a reason, and Republicans are perfectly within their rights to attempt to make a case for their version of things. For that matter, Republicans have been out of the presidency for all of 3 and change years, and more or less hold the Congress. Are Republicans really so anti-democracy that they can't possibly stomach the idea of a Democratic president for four or even eight years? Somehow, they made it through FDR, who was far more of a socialist than Obama will ever be.

- What I would say to the idea of secession as patriotism is that no, it is not. If the democratic process is part and parcel of what this country stands for, our single greatest achievement to be held up before all of mankind as a shining beacon of hope, and if you cannot handle the idea of losing a single or even two fairly won elections, instead resorting to armed violence and seccession, then I'd say you don't love this country, you love a set of ideas. And that just ain't the same thing.

Which is to say that huffily announcing your intentions to take your ball and go home may make you feel all righteous, but doesn't seem to fit into any definition of patriotism that I ever heard. You cannot, I say in refutation of your first two sentences, break away from a thing in order to reform the whole thing. You can only break away from a thing in order to form a new thing. Secession will not magically erase the Democratic party or even the Obama presidency, just as the Confederate States of America failed to destroy the Republican party or even the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and indeed had the wholly opposite effect.

- And obviously we settled the whole "is secession treason?" question a century and a half ago in the affirmative.

- As to the costs, I take it as a given that any secession will result in a war. I'm having a hard time recalling any secession that didn't result in a long and protracted military struggle. The last one, you may recall, killed fully 2% of the whole population and ruined the economy of the South to such a degree they're still feeling some aftereffects from it. We remember World War II as driving the economy of this nation out of the ditch, but need I remind you that in Europe where the real fighting took place you had rationing and German POWs doing cleanup well into the 1950s?

Nothing Obama will ever do will ever result in the deaths of 2% of the population or obliterate whole cities. War would ruin all of us.

Frankly, I can't even believe I'm having this particular discussion. Your "unfortunate side effect?" This.

(we need size limits on images, we really do)

Conner said:

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't think this situation is the same as North Korea. Similar in several ways, yes, but not the same. For one thing, unlike South Korea, Israel does have the very real means to retaliate, or even counter strike in a bigger fashion. Unlike North Korea where we're going this is a bad situation and we need to make sure it's controlled, here we have Obama telling Israel we'll back them but don't do anything because we're convinced we can talk Syria and Iran out of getting out of hand, despite the fact that they've tried every way they could in the past to get out of hand and now we're talking about them seriously gaining the ability to damage the planet... exactly in the ways they've always wanted to. I do agree that a war in either Syria or Iran would be a seriously bad idea, but I really don't think a few nukes would terribly mind the opposition they'd find there.

Well, leaving Bush aside, I could bring it back to Washington or Lincoln if you want. Truman or Eisenhower? Any of those you want. FDR? TR? We've got plenty of examples of presidents who had big ol' wars declining to not have some more random wars.

- Re: Israel vs. South Korea, leaving aside Israel's nuclear capacity, it's not like South Korea would exactly be flailing around helpless in the face of North Korean nukes. The main thing nukes give Israel is a greater ability to go off half-cocked. Either North Korea or Iran is going to pretty well require the US if you're going to actually disarm anybody, so no, I think they're pretty similar, or at least close enough for government work.

- I feel moderately certain that I don't need to discuss the problems with us randomly dropping nukes on people.

- All of what I've been saying, sort of like I've said with Syria, should not be taken to mean I think Iran having the bomb is a great idea, or that I wouldn't support a war if that's what ends up needing to happen. I am, however, excessively tired of the automatic assumption that war is totally the way to go out of the gate, and our capacity to completely underestimate precisely what having that war would mean.

Iraq kind of got that kind of belligerance out of my system.

Conner said:

Yeah, I read something about this over on your own blog today.. I would propose that the guys at GameStop might be idiots and giving up sleep entirely for any game might be a bad idea. In short: Get some rest.

Well, in their defense, they're in college, and it's not like you have anything better to do in college except get laid, and at that age class, video games, girls, and four hours of sleep plus a part time job are eminently jugglable.

For myself, it has a lot more to do with moving heavy crap being tiring. I have a lot of books and bought a lot of furniture, and carting it is heavy. Having to then get up and do more of it, well.

But I think we're mostly done with that. More to be posted later thereon.

I've been avoiding this because I don't really feel like commenting on it further since you will never see that we have legitimate reasons to be pissed off, nor will you ever see that things really are worse than you think they are, but:

To me, if one were to love one's country and wish to improve it, one would attempt to work within and reform the system. We have a democratic process in this country for a reason, and Republicans are perfectly within their rights to attempt to make a case for their version of things. For that matter, Republicans have been out of the presidency for all of 3 and change years, and more or less hold the Congress. Are Republicans really so anti-democracy that they can't possibly stomach the idea of a Democratic president for four or even eight years? Somehow, they made it through FDR, who was far more of a socialist than Obama will ever be.

This isn't just about the last 3 years. Progressives in this country have been at this since Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson tried to push the progressive agenda down everyone's throats. They learned back in the 1920s that doing so quickly and violently didn't work. So they've spent the better part of their time since WWII slowly but surely eroding the foundational values of this country. Starting with a slew of SCOTUS rulings in the 1950s and 1960s that were the first salvo in a long and protracted war on religious freedoms.

The assault on our constitutional rights has been well documented. It's just that Obama and the Dems have dropped the quiet approach and are pushing hard to turn things past the breaking point ever since the election in 2006. We managed to stop them and put another temporary halt on things, but between the DNC, Whitehouse, and the liberal elite media, all we've ever managed to do is stall things temporarily until they can turn the whole country against us and inflict more damage. FDR, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and now Obama. Clinton wasn't quite so gung-ho about it since he was more interested in molesting his interns, which is why he's out of favor now with the progressive leadership.

This is why I at least have come to the conclusion that the left isn't interested in allowing us to have our say. They're more interested in labeling us. "Teabaggers" comes to mind. They know their arguments have no merit, so they just turn to name calling instead. The media laps it up, and since most people in the USA just want to go about whatever is making them happy at the moment, they eat this shit up.

When someone takes a principled stand against this, the media attacks dogs go into full overdrive. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and now Rush Limbaugh are all victims of this. Yeah, sure, they all say stupid stuff sometimes, but the leftist media gets away with some pretty heinous things that make anything we might have said seem civil and tame by comparison. They still have their jobs, but God forbid someone on he right should even be allowed to have a voice. You don't see us running around trying to take MSNBC and CNN off the air, yet every day I see hate filled slag posts clamoring for Fox News to be not only taken off the air, but for its executives to be arrested! Free speech, so long as you're a socialist and love it? That's not what the founders had in mind.

So yeah. You can go on and on about how we should just shut up and come back to the table. No thanks. The Democrats have clearly demonstrated they're not interested in allowing us that chance. So fuck em. There's no country left to reform, so why should those of us who value the original principles it was founded on be interested in helping you guys maintain the farce?

As for the "unfortunate side effects", yes, admittedly a full blown civil war would be a bad thing, without any doubts, but if that's what it takes to get rid of the crap that's made it through to date, well, it might be worth it. I am a patriot and I love my country, I'm just not so certain that the U.S. of today is the democratic republic that I was taught in school that it was anymore. Frankly, as Samson pointed out in the post preceding this one, the fact is that it really hasn't been the country we were all taught that it was since well before any of us were taught about it. It's well past due for dramatic changes that simply can't be made from within the system anymore as the system currently stands.

As for the sleep thing, (one really has to wonder what the hell I'm doing up at 5 A.M. my time responding to this on the topic of sleep being important...) glad to hear that the moving heavy boxes thing is almost done for you. Even if you're of an age that you have nothing better in your life than trying to get laid, crash. a part-time job, classes, and video games, sleep deprivation really does have some nasty side effects that are definitely not worth it.

Oh come on Samson, Nazi this, Socialist that, communist this, Stalinist that. Do i really have to point out how your side of politics has labled just about everything as some evil attampt to take over the world.

My favorate conservative quote of late is Class Warfare. When i saw Tony Abbott on the TV saying that the first thing that came to my mind was fuck you, followed by a overwhealming urge to want to punch him in the face. Australia currently has one of the worst governments in our history, much like the US does right now also, but guess what, the concervatives will not get office next time around either here or in the US, why? because the conservatives are actually worse that what we got and what you got also.

This is what got the Dems and Labour government, Optomism, and it is that which will give them government again, even thought they totally incompetant. While the conservative side of politics only has negetives, it has no chance at all. And for Aussie, the libs need to fuck off Abbott and bring back Turnbull, i might actually concider voting for them if Turnbull was leader, atm i am voting greeens with a labour preference.

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